Firmware
Tesla’s approach for Full Self-Driving gets validated by Cornell researchers, LiDAR pioneer
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is not a fan of LiDAR, a key technology used by leaders in the autonomous vehicle market such as Waymo. For Musk, vehicles should be able to drive themselves much like humans, through cameras and a neural network. While Musk’s stance on autonomous driving remains divisive, a recent study from Cornell researchers and comments from a full self-driving pioneer suggests that the Tesla CEO might have been right all along when it comes to using a non-LiDAR approach for autonomous driving.
Elon Musk did not mince his words when he was asked about his opinions on LiDAR during Tesla’s recently-held Autonomy Day. Musk, who actually uses LiDAR for SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, noted that the technology is useful in the right circumstances. It just so happens that autonomous driving is not one of them. Musk even predicted that companies that are deeply committed to LiDAR for full self-driving would eventually abandon the technology. “LiDAR is lame. They’re gonna dump LiDAR, mark my words. That’s my prediction,” he said.
Cornell researchers have finished a study titled Pseudo-LiDAR from Visual Depth Estimation: Bridging the Gap in 3D Object Detection for Autonomous Driving, which will be presented at the 2019 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition in June. The study discusses a potential breakthrough for autonomous driving using strategically-placed cameras to produce stereoscopic images that can be converted to 3D data. Tesla is using a practically identical strategy in its vehicles, which was demonstrated by Sr. Director of AI Andrej Karpathy during his Autonomy Day presentation.
What is rather interesting from the findings of the Cornell researchers is that the 3D data generated from vehicles’ stereoscopic cameras were found to be nearly as precise as what laser scanners can generate. The data proved to be without distortion, and it was generated at a fraction of the cost had LiDAR been used. The researchers’ findings and model are still open for a lot of improvement, but the study does show that full self-driving without LiDAR is very much possible.
A stronger stance against LiDAR was also related recently by LiDAR pioneer Anthony Levandowski, founder and CEO of Pronto.ai, a self-driving startup that uses a non-LiDAR approach. Prior to serving as Pronto’s CEO, Levandowski was heavily involved in the development of Waymo’s full self-driving solutions. He later oversaw Uber’s autonomous driving program after his startup, Otto, was acquired by the ride-hailing juggernaut in 2016. During a recent discussion with TechCrunch, the autonomous driving pioneer, who is being accused by Waymo of breaching his confidentiality agreement with the company, described why he opted out of using LiDAR for Pronto.ai’s full self-driving solutions.
“I don’t have any restrictions on not doing LiDAR, but I do have restrictions personally of not doing things that I know are not gonna work. So, in the past, I understood, I could see what we were doing, and basically, back in 2009 or 2010, you could see that the LiDARs didn’t have the performance that you needed because you couldn’t see far enough to actually, safely, have the system react to software. It turns out that even with LiDAR, what’s missing today is not seeing more accurately or further; what’s missing is understanding what is happening to those vehicles around you and being able to predict what the motion is,” he said.
Anthony Levandowski and Elon Musk have not really seen eye to eye in the past, with the Tesla CEO criticizing the LiDAR pioneer for his stance on AI. Levandowski, for his part, reportedly insulted Musk in tweets to Travis Kalanick, Uber’s co-founder, at one point even suggesting that they start giving “physics lessons about stupid s**t Elon says.” The self-driving pioneer nevertheless proved humbled in his recent segment, stating that “a wiser person than me – and I’ll eat some humble pie here – said that LiDAR is a crutch.” When prompted by the host if he agrees with Elon Musk’s stance on autonomous driving, Levandowski admitted that “he’s right.”
Watch Anthony Levandowski’ interview on autonomous driving in the video below.
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
Tesla announced its Spring 2026 software update, and it’s the most feature-dense seasonal release the company has put out. The update covers twelve named changes spanning FSD, voice AI, safety lighting, dashcam storage, and pet display customization, among other things.
The centerpiece for owners with AI4 hardware is a redesigned Self-Driving app. The new interface lets owners subscribe to Full Self-Driving with a single tap and view ongoing FSD usage stats directly in the vehicle.
Grok gets its biggest in-car upgrade yet. The update adds a “Hey Grok” hands-free wake word along with location-based reminders, so a driver can now say “remind me to pick up groceries when I get home” without touching the screen. Grok first arrived in vehicles in July 2025, but each update has pushed it closer to genuine daily utility. Musk framed the broader vision clearly at Davos in January, saying Tesla is “really moving into a future that is based on autonomy.”
On safety, the update introduces enhanced blind spot warning lights that integrate directly with the cabin’s ambient lighting, building on the blind spot door warning that arrived in update 2026.8.
Dog Mode has been renamed Pet Mode and now lets owners choose a dog, cat, or hedgehog icon and add their pet’s name to the display.
Dashcam retention now extends up to 24 hours, up from the previous one-hour rolling loop, with a permanent save option for any clip. Weather maps now show rain and snow with better color differentiation and include the past hour of precipitation data along the route.
Tesla has now established a clear rhythm of two major OTA pushes per year. As with last year’s Spring update, that cycle started taking shape in 2025 with adaptive headlights and trunk customization. The 2025 Holiday Update then added Grok to the vehicle for the first time. This Spring follows that structure: the Holiday update introduces new architecture, and the Spring update broadens it across the fleet.
Two notable features still did not make it. IFTTT automations, which launched in China earlier this year, were held back from this North American release for unknown reasons, and Apple CarPlay remains absent, reportedly still delayed by iOS 26 and Apple Maps compatibility issues.
Below is the full list of feature updates released by Tesla.
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 13, 2026
It appears that Tesla may be preparing to roll out some subscription-based services soon. Based on the observations of a Wales-based Model 3 owner who performed some reverse-engineering on the Tesla mobile app, it seems that the electric car maker has added a new “Subscribe” option beside the “Buy” option within the “Upgrades” tab, at least behind the scenes.
A screenshot of the new option was posted in the r/TeslaMotors subreddit, and while the Tesla owner in question, u/Callump01, admitted that the screenshot looks like something that could be easily fabricated, he did submit proof of his reverse-engineering to the community’s moderators. The moderators of the r/TeslaMotors subreddit confirmed the legitimacy of the Model 3 owner’s work, further suggesting that subscription options may indeed be coming to Tesla owners soon.
Did some reverse engineering on the app and Tesla looks to be preparing for subscriptions? from r/teslamotors
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite has been heavily speculated to be offered as a subscription option, similar to the company’s Premium Connectivity feature. And back in April, noted Tesla hacker @greentheonly stated that the company’s vehicles already had the source codes for a pay-as-you-go subscription model. The Tesla hacker suggested then that Tesla would likely release such a feature by the end of the year — something that Elon Musk also suggested in the first-quarter earnings call. “I think we will offer Full Self-Driving as a subscription service, but it will be probably towards the end of this year,” Musk stated.
While the signs for an upcoming FSD subscription option seem to be getting more and more prominent as the year approaches its final quarter, the details for such a feature are still quite slim. Pricing for FSD subscriptions, for example, have not been teased by Elon Musk yet, though he has stated on Twitter that purchasing the suite upfront would be more worth it in the long term. References to the feature in the vehicles’ source code, and now in the Tesla mobile app, also listed no references to pricing.
The idea of FSD subscriptions could prove quite popular among electric car owners, especially since it would allow budget-conscious customers to make the most out of the company’s driver-assist and self-driving systems without committing to the features’ full price. The current price of the Full Self-Driving suite is no joke, after all, being listed at $8,000 on top of a vehicle’s cost. By offering subscriptions to features like Navigate on Autopilot with automatic lane changes, owners could gain access to advanced functions only as they are needed.
Elon Musk, for his part, has explained that ultimately, he still believes that purchasing the Full Self-Driving suite outright provides the most value to customers, as it is an investment that would pay off in the future. “I should say, it will still make sense to buy FSD as an option as in our view, buying FSD is an investment in the future. And we are confident that it is an investment that will pay off to the consumer – to the benefit of the consumer.” Musk said.
Tesla wins big as NHTSA drops three-year, 120k unit probe against Model Y
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